Bertran’s love-songs are not the emanations of a pure guileless heart, such as the _canzos_ of Guillem de Cabestanh or Folquet of Marseilles. Upon the whole one is glad to find that they are not and do not pretend to be such; for a lover’s unselfish devotion could be nothing but pretension in a man of his character. Bertran was, and appears even in his _canzos_, a man of the world, to whom his love affairs are of secondary importance. Yet these _canzos_ are not without passion, and not seldom have a peculiar charm of simple grace, all the more delightful because of its contrast with the warlike harshness of his ordinary strains. What, for instance, can be more sweet and graceful than the following stanza, which occurs at the beginning of one of Bertran’s _sirventeses_?— When the young blossoms of the spring appear And paint the bushes pink and white and green, Then in the sweetness of the nascent year I clothe my song; at all times such has been The wont of birds; and as a bird am I Who love the fairest lady tenderly: I dare to love her longing for love’s fruit, But never dare to speak; my heart is mute. After such an opening the reader expects a love-song of tenderest pathos. But no. After another stanza, Bertran suddenly changes his mind. Perhaps the lady whom he silently adored did not understand or appreciate his passion. ‘As without a lady’—he now exclaims—‘one cannot make a love-song, I am going to sing a fresh and novel _sirventes_.’ And forthwith he begins his ordinary strain of invective against a whole catalogue of hostile barons. Of the objects of Bertran’s passion—for we know of two, and there may have been others of whom we do not know—the old manuscripts give us a prolix account. We first hear of a Lady Maenz or Matilda of Montignac, wife of Count Talairand (for as a matter of course she was married), and sister to two other ladies celebrated by the troubadours for their beauty and courteous demeanour. The Lady Maenz was wooed by many noble knights and barons; and even three scions of royalty, the Princes Richard and Geoffrey of England and King Alfonso of Aragon, are mentioned amongst her suitors. But Bertran’s valour and fame as a poet gained the victory in her heart over power and riches. Such at least is the account of the old biography, founded, it seems, on a somewhat vague statement in one of Bertran’s own poems, to the effect that his lady ‘refused Poitou, and Tolosa, and Bretagne and Saragosa, but has given her love to the valorous poor knight’—meaning of course himself.